Bought a 9 month old puppy last night from a genuine seller who said it was house trained, got it home and it pee,d a few times on the floor, fair enough it was new surroundings.
Came downstairs this morning to a floor of wee and a couple of poos, probably shouldn’t,t have expected and thing-else as it was his first night in new surroundings.
We also have a 9 year old dog as well who seems a little put out by the whole experience which is expected although they seem to be getting on, their both Bedlington terriers.

Any advice as its not the dogs fault but being 9 years since the last experience of this any advice would be appreciated, I’m going to put him in the kitchen tonight so at least he only messes in 1 place. I need to ring the last owner so see what sort of routine he had.
I work away through the week so the wife and daughter will have its problems through the week

Cheers

Make the dog sleep in the utility or somewhere on the periphery of the family home so it understands its place in the pack. Don’t allow it in bedrooms and don’t allow it to eat before you. Walkies or garden before bed and first thing in the morning and it should begin to be able to time its habits.

New environment?

Give it a chance. It might be nervous with a dog and new noises.

Set up a routine for it – use a set phrase to encourage it to go outside to pee/poo, make a big fuss of it when they toilet outside. Try not to show anger or negative emotions if there’s an accident.

Young dog will need a little bit of time to learn the routines of its new home – the more secure it feels, the less likely it will be to soil inappropriately. I don’t really buy the ‘pack order’ guff – it’s a young dog, so if you give it clear guidance and boundaries, it will happily settle into the family as a junior member.

Hope you get it sorted!

I took a 9 month old rescue in, about a year ago. She was also supposed to be house trained, but in reality she knew not to do anything on carpet, however stone and wood floors were fair game 😐

As I don’t have carpet downstairs it took a few weeks to retrain her. One year on and all that seems a distant memory, she’s a lovely dog and we’ll worth a few weeks of floor washing.

Not sure if you want to go in that direction, but I crate trained her, which quickly solved the night time issue (she never messed in it) and has been very useful camping and when staying away somewhere.

Using a crate is a good idea too, they don’t like soiling their sleeping area so it makes it more controllable for you to be able to take the puppy out last thing at night and first thing in the morning!

Another vote for crate training for the reasons PePPer stated. But don’t use the crate for “punishment”, it should be a “happy place” 🙂

Just got to say – ignore anything and everything about dominance/place in the pack (old school outdated thinking).

I’m house-trained and if you yanked me from my family and locked me downstairs in a dark, unfamiliar environment I’d have crapped on your floor too.

Give it a chance…

Are you sure you’ve not started to sleep-walk?

Making sure your dog isn’t full of wee and poo by taking it out late on will help. Seems obvious, but always worked for us

We had some success with (overnight) crating – made sure our lad got a treat and lots of attention whenever he went in the crate and spent some time making it his ‘happy place’ in the kitchen.

+1 for the crate and taking them out just before bed.

I’ve a 18 month old Lab who was rescued and he’s never done anything in the house using that routine.

I’m still trying to get him to toilet in the yard as falling asleep on the settee and waking up at 2.45am and having to get dressed and walk the streets to toilet him is not good.

Take out before bed and stay with it till it goes to the toilet whereupon give it a treat. No toilet, no treat. Don’t punish for the accident. It won’t understand. And try not to sweat it, there will be the odd accident. I dunno if nine months is a bit old for crate training, but you never know.

all good advice above, also consider an upset tummy/worms. Always worth getting a new dog checked over by a vet.
Our 14 yr old dog has just had a bad dose of colitis so we are getting it all over again…

Been there – our dog was “crate trained” and “house trained” when we got her. We had so many instants of “wee and poo” everywhere including in the crate that were close to getting rid of her after a month.
The crate she’d been in was with 2 other dogs, so it was very different on her own.
She is a very poor settler into new environments, as we’ve recently discovered again.
We had to have the crate at the foot of our bed for a week, then gradually moved it, landing; foot of stairs; front room, until we got her settled where we wanted her.
Personally, I wouldn’t go for crate training on a 9 month year old dog, but that’s just me.

When we got a puppy we let him out every couple of hours and waited until he did something then praised him like crazy when he had. Only took a couple of weeks.

I can count on one hand how many times he has done something in the house. A lot of effort at first but it has paid off now, very clean dog.

Just got to say – ignore anything and everything about dominance/place in the pack (old school outdated thinking).

You’ve evidently never had a dog that thinks it’s dominant. It happens, it’s pack mentality, and yes it is old school…a few million years old school.

You’ve evidently never had a dog that thinks it’s dominant. It happens, it’s pack mentality, and yes it is old school…a few million years old school.

Totally agree

My parents have got a 16 week old cocker spaniel, they’ve had him since 10 weeks, they also have a 7 year old flat coated retriever.

They’ve crate trained them both, Harley the spaniel has been pretty good, few accidents in the first couple of days but that’s pretty much it (apart from when he’s playing with Maddi, I think he forgets he needs a wee and sometimes doesn’t quite make it outside!).

Harley pee’d in his crate once very early on, but learnt his lesson when he had to sleep the rest of the night in it.

As said above, out for the toilet just before bed, and be prepared for some early mornings (6am for my parents for the last 6 weeks), when they squeak to be let out for a wee, and then want to play.

Thanks for the advice, spoke to the previous owner again this morning and discussed his accidents, he had been kept in a cage at night and never soiled on the floor, so i think a cage is the answer so he’s back to his old enviroment to start with.

I too often wee in strange enviroments especially after a lads weekend away

Used a cage to begin with…then moved alfie to a dog bed…and now sleeps on the leather sofa. I can hear him diving off it every morning and into his bed every morning as i come down the stairs. He had a few accidents…but more because the missus kept giving him treats.

You’ve evidently never had a dog that thinks it’s dominant. It happens, it’s pack mentality, and yes it is old school…a few million years old school.

I’ve posted this before, but I’ll post it again…

Back in the 1940’s, Schenkel studied wolves and published his findings. He observed that wolves live in a hierarchical society with the Alpha being the dominant wolf. David Mech later popularised this idea in one of his early books.

And so the idea spread… dogs are descended from wolves. Wolves live in a hierarchical society, and so “we” must dominate our dogs to let them know who’s boss.

It wasn’t Schenkel or Mech who put forward the idea of dominance “theory” with regard to the domestic dogs, but the idea spread and it somehow became “common knowledge”.

A few points:

The wolves that Schenkel studied were not a wild wolf pack living in their natural environment, but captive, made up of individuals captured from different locations. Modern studies have shown that wolves live in family groups with the parents being at the head of the family.

Schenkel misinterpreted the behaviour of the wolves he studied with regards to pinning others to the ground.

David Mech later withdrew his support of the idea that wolves live a hierachical society.

Also, dogs are not wolves. They are by now a separate species. To try and put a wolf’s behaviour on dogs is as ridiculous as putting dog’s behaviour on wolves. We wouldn’t bring a wolf into our homes and expect to be able to control it. Why? because a wolf is a wolf, not a dog.

it’s what dogs do!! you bought it, you drown it!!

dogs are not wolves

You can cross breed wolves and dogs, it is a spectacularly stupid thing to do, but you get puppies either way round, so they are still the same species. Dogs retain many of the same instincts as wolves e.g. rolling in poo so comparison has some use in understanding dog behaviour.
Humans gain ‘top dog’ status by controlling food, and other activities e.g. walk, working/play. Domestic dogs have been bred to be subordinate to humans. I agree there is no need to physically dominate a dog, in fact it could be dangerous.

You can cross breed a donkey and a horse to produce offspring, but I wouldn’t claim that makes them the same species.

from wikipedia

The dog (Canis lupus familiaris) is a domestic subspecies of the wolf, a mammal of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora.

mules are sterile hybrids

Bought a cage last night and Buddy had his 1st night in it, after a minute of barking he never made a sound all night, he seems to of really settled now.
Don,t want him sleeping in a cage forever so what’s the next step?

So what is the alternative to the domination idea then?

Why not Archie 8, still has his cage, he thinks of it as his bed. The door is always left open unless we have people in that we don’t want Archie to pester to play. Otherwise he is free to use it as he wants.

The crate is great. If you go away with him and you have bought a folding crate you can rake it with you, he will settle easily.
They see it as their own space, the dog doesn’t understand the human connotations with the words crate or cage. Think of it as a doggy Wendy house…

My dog has learnt to open the spare bedroom door, and can be heard leaving it at around 6am before we get up. He then makes his way back downstairs and pretends to be fast asleep when I get up. Dumb animals, eh?

crate.. and there on 30% off in ”the range” ( other retail and internet outlets are available and maybe closer to home)

all above about it been a poo free safe place

So what is the alternative to the domination idea then?

Stick a gimp mask on and submit to your dog!!!

Crate/cage worked for us, then gradually phased it out.

Glad to hear it’s better, there may still be accidents in the future though.

We have a crate for our dog. As above the door is now left open all the time. We did try taking it away and giving lilly just a normal bed but she kept going to where the crate was stored and pollit longingly at it. Now the crate is back full time and lilly has to her house back…

My dogs similar, he had a crate at our last house and when we moved we just put his bed under the stairs. If we now go to back to our old house, he makes a bee line for his old bed and like coming out!

So how does crate training work then?

I’m thinking of getting a mutt for the family (grew up with dogs in the house). Do you lock them into the crate at night or when you go out to assist with house preservation or do you just use it as a bed with a roof?

Ours is still crapping on the floor and is 9 months and been here since may. Can be outside for a hour and come back inside and shit and piss everywhere.

Seems to have his house training now sorted but second night in cage he just howled and howled, eventually after a god 15 minutes had to go downstairs and let him out, I’m not sure if a cage has been used in the past as a punishment instead of a home.
Going to buy a bed for him today and a bigger one for our other Bedlington as they seem happy to sleep together now.

Thank god I work away through the week so they wife and daughter will have all the trials and tribulations until next Friday afternoon

its a new house and new environment with more than likely different food so totally to be expected.

Just make sure you feed the dog very bland food for the first few weeks or else you risk stomach infections/issues, I recently got a rescue and had exactly the same thing where it couldn’t make it through the night and then after three days started passing blood.

You’ve evidently never had a dog that thinks it’s dominant. It happens, it’s pack mentality, and yes it is old school…a few million years old school.

You do realize that the dominance theories have been completely discredited now? Studies of wild European wolves and semi feral dogs has proven beyond any doubt that the alpha struggle for dominance theory just doesn’t happen. All the dominance theories were based around observations of unrelated Timber wolves thrown together in a confined space in massively stressful circumstances so they acted in a very unnatural and strange way.

Also its not millions of years old school, as we domesticated canids ~20000 years ago and wiped out any others that were considered a threat.